Just like there was a time when people could get mortgages or watch television on any given night without seeing a reality show featuring a has-been star, the Yankees actually had some antsy moments late last night at the Stadium, despite the final 8-3 score over the A’s.
But Phil Coke eased the anxiety. Pretty much the way the Yankees’ bullpen seems to do it with regularity recently.
With the Yankees holding a 4-1 lead in the eighth inning, Coke was brought in to face the tying run, which first turned out to be pinch hitter Nomar Garciaparra. The left-handed Coke started his rescue act with a strikeout of Garciaparra. He then induced a flyball out from Adam Kennedy and finished of the frame by fanning Orlando Cabrera, like Garciaparra a right-handed hitter. And he used the same weapon, a biting slider, he employed to strike out Garciaparra.
“He did a tremendous job. And that’s a hard job to do,” Mariano Rivera, who knows a thing or 500 about relief, said of pitching with inherited runners. “He came in and did it like a champion. He shut the door. That was a save right there.”
Saves are pretty much out of the question in 8-3 games but when Coke entered, it was three-run game. His only hiccup was wild-pitching runners to second and third, but striking out Cabrera made the wild pitch moot.
In his last 16 appearances at home, he has not allowed a run. And overall, minus a disastrous four run inning against the Angels, Coke has allowed one earned run in 13 games.
“It was a key situation,” Coke said of his latest appearance — which he said meant a lot because manager Joe Girardi left him in to face the right-handed hitting Cabrera. “He showed the confidence in me and the last thing I want to do is disappoint him and the team. It was key. At the time, we weren’t up 8-1.”
But what about coming in with inherited runners? Even Rivera thinks that’s tough.
“I don’t find it very difficult because I try to put myself in the position of being the starter and viewing them as my runs,” Coke said. “So I go out with the attitude of ‘I put them on and they’re not coming in.’ “
